Developer tool and design directories, in short
Developers do not click directory links often, but when they do they arrive ready to install something. These sites send fewer visitors than the general directories and convert far better, which makes the smaller numbers misleading.
What counts as a developer tool directory
A developer tool directory indexes things engineers install rather than things they subscribe to: CLIs, libraries, APIs, self-hosted services, editor extensions. The audience arrives with a specific problem and leaves as soon as they have solved it, which makes these sites low in traffic and unusually high in intent.
The good ones are opinionated. They will list twelve options in a category and say which they would use, which is why developers trust them and why getting in is harder than filling a form.
By the numbers
These 14 directories have a median rating of DR 57. The strongest is Product Hunt at DR 91, the weakest at DR 12. 4 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 5 charge for every listing. 7 pass a dofollow link.
That puts them in line with the list as a whole, which runs to a median of DR 58. By band that is 2 rated 80 or above, 5 rated 60 to 79, 3 rated 40 to 59 and 4 rated below 40. 5 of them have no traffic estimate at all, which usually means too little to measure rather than none.
What a listing actually gets you
Designers discover tools visually and share them constantly, so a listing that looks good travels further than its traffic number suggests. A single feature on a well-followed design directory routinely produces more downstream mentions than the directory itself sends visits.
The listing pages also tend to be well built and fast, which means they rank, and they rank for exactly the searches a designer makes when a client asks for something they have not done before.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Get the screenshot right before you write a word. These listings are browsed visually, at speed, and a sharp hero image will carry a mediocre description further than good copy will rescue a bad image. Export at twice the size the directory asks for, because most of them upscale. Show the interface doing the thing your tool is for, not a logo on a gradient, and if the tool produces output, show the output.
Common mistakes
Sending traffic to a landing page with an email capture and no documentation. Describing what the tool is instead of what it replaces. Hiding the licence, the pricing, or the fact that the free tier stops at a hard limit, all of which get discovered in the first comment and then discussed instead of your product.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are Product Hunt, Dang.ai and AI Directories, led by 4.84M visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is Product Hunt at DR 91. 3 approve quickly, Dofollow Tools, Productivity Directory and Startup.sx among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
14 directories match on this page. 4 take a submission for nothing, 5 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 3 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, Product Hunt (DR 91), Dang.ai (DR 82) and Uneed (DR 76). By audience, Product Hunt is the largest at 4.84M visits a month. Relevance beats both: a directory that actually covers what you built will do more than a stronger one that does not.
Why do developer directories send so little traffic?
Because developers do not browse directories, they search for a specific problem and land on one page. The visit counts are low and the conversion rates are not comparable to anything else on this list.
Does open source help?
Considerably. Several of these directories either prioritise open-source entries or have a dedicated section for them, and the audience treats a public repository as evidence that the tool is real.
Should I submit a library or just the product?
Both, if they are genuinely separate. A library and the hosted service built on it are two different things to two different readers, and most directories are happy to list them separately.
What image should I submit?
The interface doing the thing your tool is for. Directories that show a grid of thumbnails are effectively ranking you on that one image, which makes it the highest-leverage thing you will prepare.
Do design directories accept no-code tools?
Most do, and several now have a dedicated category for them. Check whether the directory indexes tools or assets first, because the assets ones will reject a builder however good it is.
Is a free listing enough?
On the visual directories, placement matters more than elsewhere, because browsing stops after the first two rows. A free listing gets you in; paid placement is one of the few cases where the upgrade is measurable.
Every figure quoted above is read off the table on this page, so it moves as the list does. Domain rating and traffic are third-party estimates captured in September 2026: useful for ordering a shortlist, not precise figures.